"I said: 'My friend, you listen to me: every minute you delay takes off a mark from what is coming to you when I leave, so you can calculate how much will be owing me if you don't get a move on.' "Well, that got under his skin, and before long he returned with a man in a green apron, who, he said, was a locksmith. "I explained to the porter that I wanted the locks taken off every trunk, and twenty-one new locks put on, which one key would fit. It took him some time to understand that I did not want twenty-one keys and one lock, but when he did, he translated it into one of his five branches of languages. The man in the green apron began to run around in circles and said there were not twenty-one locks alike in Frankfort. I asked where they could be gotten, and Green Apron said only at the factory. "Well, where was that? "In Munich or near there. If he wrote he might be able to get them in a week. "I asked if his health did not permit him to travel. "When he got that, he was instructed to take the first train to Munich and get those locks, bring them back and have them on the trunks by noon the next day. It was Maria's birthday, and I wanted to give her a surprise. "Well, sir, it was done, and now life is easy. The only drawback was that there were no more German custom-houses for us to pass through, and so no more officers who wanted to see how many pieces we had in the wash, for we shipped our baggage 'in bond' and when we reached England the officer said: 'If you will open that one, it will be all that I shall require,' and when I offered him what would be expected at home, he declined it! However, I shall have some fun at home when we get on the dock where the officers loaf while distracted passengers hunt for keys. "The porter got his tip, but whether it was not as much as he had expected, or whether he thought I had not shown proper respect for the field-marshal's uniform, or for some other reason, he did not seem grateful and said something about tags. I told him I didn't need any, as I had had mine printed before we left home. "Maria says that I did not understand, that the Germans are expecting a sort of Day of Judgment, and that Tag means Day. Well, if it comes while I'm still here, I'm willing to take what's coming to me if sentence can be suspended till I see some of those army and custom-house officers get theirs. I worked in the rolling-mills, when I was young, and I guess I can stand it better than some!" "Jim," said Mrs. Siegel, "you ought to be ashamed of yourself, talking that way before Mr. Dobson." "I guess that's right, mother, but Dobson dresses and talks and acts so like a man that I keep forgetting that he is a preacher." As we drove away toward Windsor I said to Ruth: "Is he not typical of hundreds we know, and, in spite of their roughness, what a power they are in the land!"